Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy adopted plausible realism as its watchword, presenting a version of the Batman story that matched the actual world as closely as possible. There were no wizards or space aliens in Nolan’s Gotham. Neither Superman nor Wonder Woman made an appearance, and Batman’s rogue’s gallery needed to be pruned of exotic figures like Mr. Freeze and Poison Ivy. The villains who remained were “downgraded” in certain ways to be made more plausible. Bane’s Venom drug was a nonfactor in The Dark Knight Rises, while Heath Ledger’s Joker applied white make-up in The Dark Knight instead of being stuck with white skin as he is traditionally portrayed in the comics.
The approach worked well and helped turn the trilogy into a widely celebrated version of the Batman story. But it left Nolan looking for different cinematic tricks to give his villains the dramatic punch denied by their less colorful surroundings. In response, all of the trilogy’s central villains become masters of disguise, giving them the opportunity for flashy entrances at the appropriate time. Not only that, but all of them resorted to disguising themselves as henchmen.
The trend started with Batman Begins, which adopted Ra’s al Ghul as its central villain. The film hinged on a central twist: Ra’s didn’t appear to be the leader of the Brotherhood of Shadows, instead posing as a lieutenant named Henri Ducard who trains Bruce Wayne. His deception became clear just before his attack on Gotham, forcing a nascent Batman to contain the damage rather than preventing it entirely.
The film went to great lengths to protect the secret, to the point of casting Ken Watanabe -- then fresh off of an Oscar nomination for 2003’s The Last Samurai -- as Ra’s stand-in in what turned out to be a false flag of a role. The real Ra’s identity was hidden as well since Ducard was a figure from the Batman comics who helped train Bruce in his early days. The results gave Batman Begins a smart dramatic twist to start its third act and added to the strong narrative that helped make the film a smash.
Nolan repeated the trick for the sequel, The Dark Knight, only this time he saved it for the villain’s introduction rather than a final twist. In the vaunted opening sequence, a group of bank robbers is eliminated by their cohorts, one by one, as each completes their appointed task until only a single criminal remains. He then removes his mask to reveal The Joker and promptly drives off with all of the money his now-departed minions gathered for him. The Dark Knight Rises repeated the notion again with Bane, this time taken aboard a CIA plane as one of his minions. Once aboard, he murders the crew and abducts the doctor needed to launch his plan: again culminating a reveal in which the bag over his head is removed to reveal Tom Hardy in Bane's signature mask.
It makes for great theater without resorting to the more outlandish side of the comic-book medium. It provides a suitable villain’s entrance yet stays comparatively muted, keeping the world in the realm of plausible reality. Similarly, the villains' combined habit of pretending to be mere henchmen is in keeping with the trilogy’s idea that everyone has the potential for good and evil within them. The disguise notion was durable enough to hold up all three times while providing enough variation on the theme to make each villain’s take on it memorable.
Curiously enough, the big exception to the rule is Cillian Murphy’s Scarecrow, who makes no secret about his identity and never hid among his own henchmen. On the other hand, he spends the bulk of The Dark Knight imprisoned, only to emerge in The Dark Knight Rises as little more than Bane's henchman: the very kind used to shield the trilogy’s other villains from capture. In Nolan’s Gotham, it seems, keeping a low profile pays, even for the most flamboyant rogues.